User talk:W. Frank

W. Frank is busy in real life until given the appropriate tools to make patrolling vandalism on Wikitravel more efficient and may not respond swiftly to queries. If you have an urgent matter, it may be best to send an email.

German

Just a note, we've also got a German version which could use your help, as a native speaker! Welcome to Wikitravel – cacahuatetalk 00:35, 24 July 2007 (EDT)

I think I might prefer to contribute to an English version of (name deleted due to possible Wikitravel policy violation)... W. Frank 08:25, 19 August 2012 (EDT)

My user name

I also contribute to other Wiki's and try to keep the same user name "W. Frank" on every Wiki; I have been successful in this aim on Wikipedia, Meta and (name deleted due to possible Wikitravel policy violation).
W. Frank 10:52, 14 September 2012 (EDT)

Answers to your questions

Hi Frank, absolutely, there are many admins working on Wikitravel, and many more who have not contributed lately but retain full admin privileges. If an admin has not patrolled or edited content (articles) in over 3 months, they are considered inactive and their privileges will be deactivated. If they return they may be reactivated.
I will personally see to it that your suggestions for deletion, as well as any other contributions you make, are attended to. Thanks for being a great Wikitraveller!--IBobitalkemail 20:18, 14 September 2012 (EDT)

Nomination

Frank, you've been doing some good work, and I know you're disappointed about your nomination not going through. Perhaps we should try again in a few months. For now, I would appreciate it if you would stop harping on the "negative" aspects of your WT experience, and concentrate on creating and curating good content as best you can with the tools you have. Thank you, --IBobitalkemail 20:41, 15 November 2012 (EST)

No, I've either met the criteria and you should clearly state why you are not flicking the switch so other poor saps (who are not paid poodles) don't waste their precious time or

you state the criterion under which I've failed and archive my nomination.

Be under no illusions, I am not here to make your job easier, your bonus larger or IB's return diminish any less quickly. My sole motivation was exactly as I clarified on my nomination page. That means my "experience" is not germane unless it is a pointer to the "experience" that others can expect.

I'm sure if I met you in person, I'd probably like you. You certainly seem like an intelligent and perceptive individual.

What does stick in my craw though is your Goebbels-like determination to sell a big lie that nobody is actually buying; not your employers, not IB shareholders, certainly not any of the persistent editors here. All this time you waste trying to re-write history is futile and silly. Anybody who reads or edits this Wiki very obviously has Internet access and can find out very quickly what the Wikimedia Foundation is or is not doing. Your censorship simply only succeeds in making you look like a nincompoop - which your clearly not.

Have the courage to clearly lay out which policies have changed, which are temporarily in abeyance (and for how long) and give the few people willing to work for no pay and little long time reward (this ship is badly holed and sinking fast while you whistle a happy tune) the tools to stem the flood of linkspam and juvenile jokes.

I'll probably try and bale out the cabins that I had a hand in furnishing the last 6 years until the very last, but please don't expect me to don a false smile and pretend that we're moving on when we're clearly not!

If you continue to play silly buggers pretending that there is no consensus/it's not necessary to change the complete waste of time and effort that is our current standard section heading of "Get out", then don't expect any further janitorial effort from me with articles that are not related to Polynesia, Dresden or the Sahara!

Please don't bother spouting any more platitudes here - I shall simply revert them, as annoyances I can do without on a page that is supposed to assist communication about how to improve this site - especially vital as you still have the e-mail-a-registered-editor facility disabled. --W. Franke-mailtalk 17:07, 16 November 2012 (EST)

questions :

Hello Franck,

I still don't undersatnd why my topic has been removed . I added the price as IBcash asked me.
Could you please tell me what's wrong ?
Thanks

Please read your own talk page. I restored much of your deleted information. Click this link to read there: [1]

If you still don't understand, wait a day or two and User:IBcash will probably respond on your page or his. Thanks for being patient a little while longer. Bonne nuit! --W. Franke-mailtalk 20:10, 7 October 2012 (EDT)

Deleting pages

All an ordinary user can do is blank them. Please add an explanation in the edit summary when you do blank them, so we know why. Thanks for your anticipated help with this! --W. Franke-mailtalk 15:10, 19 October 2012 (EDT)

IB accounts

Hi Frank, I know you are trying to do some testing of some kind, but please do not create accounts beginning with IB as that is reserved for internal use and we do not want to confuse WTers. Thanks,--IBobitalkemail 15:43, 19 October 2012 (EDT)

I thoroughly agree.

If you remember, that was one of the reasons why I suggested that you specifically reserve the user name range of IB???????... for IBadmin use.

Email

Changing the subject: how long do you expect User e-mail to be globally disabled?

If it's going to be a while, we will both need to change our signatures, eh? --W. Franke-mailtalk 15:54, 19 October 2012 (EDT)

Your changes

Hi again Frank, I'm sorry but you are making some changes, such as changing "get out" in the London article, which we are not prepared to do at this time. That is a WV change that we're not implementing here now. If we decide to do that, we can make the change in the database and do all the articles at once.

I need you to take a step back from this behavior. You also made a (small) change to the About WT policy page, with no input from anyone. This is not the way to do things. Please make an effort to engage IB and the community on Pub pages, etc, before trying to unilaterally act. --IBobitalkemail 15:51, 19 October 2012 (EDT)

If you read Wikitravel talk:Article templates‎ the consensus should be very clear, especially now that all the stick in the muds in opposition on that page have now announced their departure.

A clear sign of life is change. When something does not change and adapt and evolve,it is dead. --W. Franke-mailtalk 16:00, 19 October 2012 (EDT)

True or not, such changes happen with consensus. Might be a good idea to change those headings, but it will be done with discussion of current community and IB, and it will be done efficiently rather than changing them one at a time willy-nilly. I've reverted them. Please, Frank, I see you're making massive amounts of edits. Slow down, and take a moment to discuss anythign that is not purely adding or patrolling travel content that you have firsthand knowledge of.--IBobitalkemail 16:10, 19 October 2012 (EDT)

These are not unilateral changes.

Remember that I've been watching these discussions for more than 5 years and all the discussions are very well documented on the relevant article discussion pages.

If you really want this Wiki to become a fossilised spam ridden relic, then you have a very easy course of action.

Otherwise, please issue some policy statements - as I asked you to do in clarifications 3 and 6 here. --W. Franke-mailtalk 16:21, 19 October 2012 (EDT)

We may yet implement that change to "Get Out"; we are not prepared to do it at this time, nor is it exactly a pressing issue, just a desired shift. We'll get there. As to spam-ridden... I see no evidence to support that. It appears, we revert, it's gone. As always. If I'm wrong and we're systematically missing some, please bring it to our attention.

Policies are the same. We are going through a short-term adjustment period, and business has not yet returned to "as usual." Those who have complained about deletions, etc., know very well why that occurred. We're moving on, happily, building a new admin community while maintaining the site. Glad you're here for it.--IBobitalkemail 17:32, 19 October 2012 (EDT)

Thanks Frank

The edits by 98.158.206.102 were me, testing a new filter to keep the bestdest.info spammers away.--IBobitalkemail 18:43, 19 October 2012 (EDT)

Go next

Hi Frank! Please do not change Get out to Go next. I appreciate your coordination! Thank you! IBAlex 20:23, 30 October 2012 (EDT)

I concur -- I'm not really a fan of "Go Next" anyway, as it is confusing and I'm not sure if to me it means "where you should go next after this destination you are currently viewing" more than it means "how to leave here." I think we need to go back to the drawing board on nomenclature with this one. Maybe "see also," or "trips from here" or something along those lines. I'll take a ,look at what the other suggestions were. And then, as we said before, when we do make the change, we'll do so systematically across all pages, not one-by-one. Thanks,--IBobitalkemail 20:26, 30 October 2012 (EDT)

If you actually take a couple of hours to read the very lengthy discussion about this, you will see:

1) A clear consensus (backed up by a clear and decisive vote) to change the confusing "Get out" to "Go next"

2) Right from the time Evan started this Wiki that - completely contrary to your own (and many other confused Newbies) - the (currently confusingly named) "Get out" section is NOT, repeat NOT intended to be used for "how to leave here" but instead intended to contain tips for what to "see also," after that particular destination or "trips from here" - in other words you have got things exactly the wrong way round!

I don't have a problem with you actually getting your finger out (before it's too late) and making all the changes systematically and robotically but I can't see any advantages whatever (and there is the disadvantage that I do have to continue to correct the misunderstandings of many people like yourself who are - quite naturally - ignorant of our actual policies in the meanwhile). --W. Franke-mailtalk 20:40, 30 October 2012 (EDT)

Well, that's not a very nice way to discuss things. I don't know what "too late" is supposed to refer to, but certainly there's very little riding on the timing of such a relatively trivial issue. At any rate, we will definitely get around to it when we have fewer much more important things on our plate, as we do now. Meantime, realize that the consensus you spoke of was of users who are mainly no longer here, nor concerned particularly with the well-being of this site; as such, their opinion carries no weight until they begin to edit here again. Thanks Frank,--IBobitalkemail 20:45, 30 October 2012 (EDT)

Even though you may not like the people who expressed their views there, they still expressed cogent and persuasive arguments for their views. You, IBobi, need to stop behaving like an autocrat and start giving some actual reasons for gratuitously ensuring an extra workload for the (relatively few) people still bothering to copy edit round here. This heading IS confusing - as you have just proved - and needs changing urgently! Now please don't give me another spasm response until and unless you actually have some understanding about what we are actually writing about here. --W. Franke-mailtalk 20:59, 30 October 2012 (EDT)

I have read those, Frank. I just don't think we're beholden to a bad decision made in the past by people who are not here now. It's not a big issue, and it doesn't cause any more work; to the contrary, making those changes and constantly having to revert them makes the work. Let's just let this one lie.--IBobitalkemail 21:02, 30 October 2012 (EDT)

(Edit conflict) There really is no polite or gentle way to put this. You may have skimmed those discussions, but it is quite obvious - if only from the rapidity of your response - that you still have not understood what is actually written there.

If you have understood what is written there then you should be able to answer a little test:

Exactly what sort of information is intended to be inserted in the section in most articles that is currently headed Get out ?

FWIW, I'm partial to Nearby or Excursions. I find Go Next way too pushy.--IBobitalkemail 21:09, 30 October 2012 (EDT)

Kolomna

Hi Frank! Why did you delete the information from Kolomna page regarding Airports? I find it constructive and informative. Looking forward to your answer. IBAlex 19:57, 6 November 2012 (EST)

I retained the (un-duplicated) information about bus and train connections and reformatted it. I excised the taxi tout information and links to Russian language websites that were not primary sources. Our policies mean that we don't include information about taxi services where there are nine or more available in one locality and travellers can easily find taxis on taxi ranks. In the case of Kolomna, it is more than 4 hours by Taxi from the nearest international airport and this is not a viable mode for most non-lottery winners. That's why the information I deleted included the information "Note, that for meet and greet in any Moscow airport, all taxi companies based in Kolomna require 100% advance payment." - they don't want to make that long US$100 plus journey at their own expense!

Would you take a taxi (rather than public transport from Poznan to Warsaw?

All of the public transport information (relating to trains) in respect of the three Moscow airports that I deleted is already present in the right place - in our Moscow article.

However, feel free to duplicate and re-format it according to our templates and policies if you think I've erred... --W. Franke-mailtalk 04:28, 7 November 2012 (EST)

Frank, I was mainly referring to keeping the information about the closest Airports to Kolomna which I find very useful. Having them listed there would not necessarily mean travelers have to take a taxi from those airports to the city, but this information would give them the idea about the location of the city plus show more options on how to connect in this region. I, as a traveler, would find them useful. I agree that in this case we should not list any taxi services, but I am going to keep the information about 100% advance payment because it benefits the traveler, don't you agree? Thank you for reformatting the info about buses and trains. Cheers! IBAlex 17:42, 7 November 2012 (EST)

Editing the London article

Hi Frank,

It appears that you've erased information that I wanted to share with the public. You're saying "New listing does not meet requirements of tour"
- The operator must have a "real world" office with a phone number and address in the location where the tour operates. "Checked"
- Tours should offer something as a supplement, rather than as a replacement for Wikitravel guides. They should count as an activity available at a destination (e.g., a helicopter tour of a city, or a camel expedition into the Sahara). "Checked"
- If the tour operator is providing a booking service or general travel planning then it should not be listed."Checked"
- Do not list resellers of tours; only list the actual tour operators."Checked"
Plus those tours are lead by real locals, born and raised londoners,they have a lot of info on the main building but also on the off the track places, they decode the city like only a native can. For sure that's something a lonely traveler cannot fulfill on it's own.

Please advise if you see more obstacle to this listing in the London article. If no I will repost in the following days.
thanks.

Tom.

It's always best to discuss edits like this on the discussion page of the article concerned so that decisions can be peer reviewed and preserved for posterity, Tom. Please feel free to copy this whole conversation to Talk:London.

If a traveller could fulfil the substance of the tour on their own, the tour should not be listed! I do agree that it's difficult to find a "true Londoner" in London these days so I (others may not) will overlook a re-posting there if you post it in correct Listing format (not with a sub-heading as you did before) and you prove to me that you understand our policies by reading our Help pages and signing (with 4 tildes) talk page contributions in future. Happy reading! --W. Franke-mailtalk 10:57, 15 November 2012 (EST)

Hello! I have checked the listing! It is constructive and will benefit the Traveler. Cheers! IBAlex 12:38, 15 November 2012 (EST)

The issue was not whether this edit contained information useful to a traveller. It was not formatted correctly (something our current policy expects of business representatives when they add their own listings) and certainly should not have been added as a separate sub-section. If you don't like our current policies then you may need to get them changed, but you can not expect me and other conscientious editors to consistently ignore them.

As Tom probably already realises,it is already border-line "if a traveller could fulfil the substance of the tour on their own, the tour should not be listed!" and "Tours should offer something as a supplement, rather than as a replacement for Wikitravel guides." since it is not that difficult to find Londoners in London to accompany them!

The other factor you seem to have ignored is what is clearly written at the top of the main "Do" section where Tom attempted to tout: "London is a huge city, so all individual listings are in the appropriate district articles.

Finally (and since I realise that, although you make many thousands of anti-vandal edits, you maybe unfamiliar with many of our content policies which pre-dated your recent hiring), the nutshell of the current policy, Aleksandra, is: "In practice this policy disallows listings for most audio tours, walking tours, and guided tours since the substance of such tours can generally be fulfilled by an independent traveller, and the information provided on such tours should ideally be included in the appropriate Wikitravel article."

Now this whole conversation is not appropriate here on my Talk page. Please take this whole conversation to Talk:London in it's entirety. --W. Franke-mailtalk 14:15, 15 November 2012 (EST)

Sock puppets

Hi Frank, As this practice is generally frowned upon across all wikis and other types of social media, please let me know which of your accounts you would prefer to have closed, *and* which single account you would like to retain at Wikitravel. Thanks, --IBobi 18:21, 26 November 2012 (EST)

OK, no reply. I blocked one of your accounts. That one's gone permanently. I'm giving this one a timeout. It's really not ok to maintain multiple accounts here unless you have a good reason, and particularly not just to sow dissent in an otherwise placid community. Let me know if you'd like to come back at some point, and abide by the rules. When you are constructive, you're very valuable here. When you're not... different story. We like Constructive Frank. --IBobi 20:01, 30 November 2012 (EST)

Every time I tried to reply it said my IP address was blocked. Unless something very weird is going on, I only have ONE account here - this one! You should really stop playing silly buggers - you've got my real name, date of birth and address (all of which are checkable) in your sodding e-mail folder from last year! --W. Franke-mailtalk 07:15, 4 January 2013 (EST)